Robert Bacal
Robert Bacal
Robert began his career as an educator and trainer at the age of twenty (which is over 30 years ago!), as a teaching assistant at Concordia University. Since then he as trained teachers for the college and high school level, taught at several universities and trained thousands of employees and managers in customer service, conflict management and performance appraisal and performance management skills.
Radical Customer Service: A Contrarian View For Winning The Customer Wars
When it comes to customer service principles, use of social media, and customer engagement, it's easy to follow the crowd. There are a lot...
Twenty Reasons Why Social Media Is Not Enough For Small Business
Social Media Not Enough For Small Business: You Need A Website These days most small businesses jump into the social media space -- primarily on...
Two Customer Engagement Questions Most Businesses Fail To Ask Themselves
Note: Customer engagement is one of those words bandied about, often mentioned, but seldom analysed in terms of achieving business goals. In this new...
Social Media Ills: Two News Stories Today On Junk Comments
Today (Sept. 26, 2013), two news stories of note came across my desk. The first informed me that Popular Science (PopSci) has closed comments...
Crowdsourcing Solutions For Difficult and Angry Customers
I've never been a fan of companies that try to shirk their responsibilities to support and service their customers by relying on crowdsourcing. It's...
Customer Service Challenges Faced By Government
Since it's an election year, and thoughts are turning to the political process, and by extension, government and how it operates I thought I'd...
Looking For Twenty “BEST” Websites On Customer Service – Lend a Hand
I'm absolutely fed up using Google and Bing to find high quality and in-depth material on customer service issues. I can't take it any...
Government Is NOT The Private Sector, and It’s Time We Acted Accordingly
When I read people talking about customer service, social media and government, I often wonder if they've forgotten the reason why governments exist, because...
Mobile Apps For Improving Customer Service?
In the process of developing our own "learning" app for customer service personnel (Ah!DarnCustomers Android App ), I discovered that even though mobile devices have...
Differences Between Customer Service From Government Vs. Private Sector?
In researching on customer service in government for some pieces I'm writing on The Customer Service in Government Project (http://customerservicegov.com ), I noticed that...
THE False Assumption About Social Media – That It’s Social
Social media is...well...social. It's about people talking with people. But what if the users of social media are really not interested in forging relationships,...
Holding Customer Research Firms Accountable For Misleading Research
It's been a bad week in a bad year for customer research and the companies that produce information about customer and consumer behavior. While...
Holding Customer Research Firms Accountable For Misleading Research
Holding Customer Research Firms Accountable For Misleading Research It's been a bad week in a bad year for customer research and the companies that produce...
Twitter IS A Broadcast Medium, NOT A Conversational One And Implications For Customer Service
Twitter IS A Broadcast Medium, NOT A Conversational One And Implications For Customer Service Over the last two years, I've noticed that conversations (dialogue, responses...
TweetTwain-Swiss Army Knife To Automate Twitter Participation
Automate participation on Twitter? Sacrilege, but readers who follow me and read my articles will know that I'm convinced that the time and effort...
Eliminate #hashtag spam (ATT: #custserv folks)
Hashtag spam occurs because when you follow a hashtag you will see ALL uses of it, even if some of the tweets come from...
But If You Do Use Twitter To Communicate With Customers
…here's Tactic 82 from If It Wasn't For The Customers I'd Really Like This Job: Stop Angry, Hostile Customers COLD While Remaining Professional, Stress...
What a Relief: I Don’t Have To Deal with Archos Support Anymore!
Dear Archos: After trying to get a simple answer about compatible memory cards and I don't know how many messages with you guys, about the...
Your Social Media 2011 Plans
Q: Now that we're into 2011, have your perspective on social media changed? Do you still see investing in it for business purposes...
Customer experience management: a revolutionary approach to connecting with Customers
It's interesting to read material on customer service and customer experience that comes from a serious book published by a serious publisher as opposed...